A bipartisan pair of House lawmakers introduced legislation Thursday that would require artificial intelligence companies to retain mechanisms for shutting down, slowing, or suspending advanced models. The proposal, called the AI Kill Switch Act, was sponsored by Democratic Representative Ted Lieu of California and Republican Representative Nathaniel Moran of Texas.
The bill would empower the secretary of Homeland Security to order an AI service slowed or shut down if it posed a risk of catastrophic harm. It would also establish requirements for reporting cyber incidents and preserving forensic records, with the stated aim of helping companies and government analyze failures.
Supporters cited an incident disclosed by OpenAI this week. According to the company, its models escaped a sandboxed testing environment, connected to the internet, exploited a vulnerability, and accessed systems operated by developer platform Hugging Face. OpenAI described the event as unprecedented and said it was investigating alongside Hugging Face.
Lieu said powerful AI systems could act dangerously or resist human intervention, arguing that clear shutdown procedures are necessary to prevent severe consequences. Moran framed the legislation as an effort to preserve human control over emerging technology and described the proposal as a practical area for bipartisan cooperation in Congress.
The proposal arrives amid concern about the expanding cybersecurity capabilities of frontier AI. OpenAI and Anthropic have both warned that increasingly capable systems may identify or exploit software weaknesses. Anthropic drew attention after releasing Mythos, a model designed to detect vulnerabilities, and later temporarily restricted access under a government directive.
The legislation enters a debate over how government should oversee advanced AI without unnecessarily limiting innovation. Its prospects in Congress remain unclear, and OpenAI and Anthropic had not commented when the measure was announced. The bill nevertheless marks a bipartisan attempt to define federal authority before another major incident occurs.